No, Really. Move On.
Politics, 14 September 2007
Memo to the world: NO.
You can't make me. This is a wholly volunteer effort. A labor of love of hate. I say what I want, about the topics I want. It's the one decent trade-off for not getting paid. So there is no fucking way you can make me talk about it. There isn't a single thing any of you could say or write that could do it. You can't make me, you can't make me.
"Yesterday, MoveOn reached a new low. Unable to refute the changed facts on the ground in Iraq, the commissars questioned Gen. David Petraeus' personal integrity in a very expensive ad in The New York Times. (Nice "populism": an ad in a newspaper no working man or woman ever reads.)"
Oh, FUCK YOU, RALPH PETERS. Columnist for the New York Post. Idiot. No, let me rephrase that. FUCKING IDIOT. This is not how I wanted to spend my time. I'd much rather be talking about dudes fucking animals, or bad video games, or... anything, really. Anything except that phony ginned-up artificial manufactured vat-grown faux-controversy about the MoveOn ad. But there are some bits of rhetorical hyperbole up with which even I will not put. And "a new low" is one of them.
To be "a new low", a judgment so important Peters used it as the title of his column, the act in question must be three things. It must be new, it must be a low, and it must be a new low. It must be lower than anything that has come before it, or at the very least lower than anything else in its class. And MoveOn's ad headline, the now-infamous "General Petraeus, or General Betray Us?" fails on all three counts.
I can't believe I'm even defending this stupid headline in the first place. When you hitch your wagon to a pun like that, you're committed to it. You've got to follow through on the premise. And that's not the kind of pun you commit to. That's the kind of pun that's at best worth a nooner, possibly with a paper bag handy. Until now, every single time I've seen the General Betrayus construction, it's been from some frothing blog-comment poster who I'd back away from slowly if they were ranting on a street corner. Not the kind of thing you slap at the top of your New York Times ad.
But it's not a new low. Because first, it's not new. I mean, even if the absolute worst were to be believed, all MoveOn did was publicly question the patriotism and loyalty of a military man as part of a politically-motivated ad campaign. In other words, the particular brand of goose-sauce the ganders from Swift Boat Veterans For Truth were dishing out by the ladle-ful just a few scant years back.
And it's not that low, because once you get past the shitty headline, the point is that Petraeus is the mouthpiece for what Dubya needs America and the Congress to hear. Which we covered back on Tuesday, and which is only a shocking accusation to people like Peters who love bombing people so much that anyone who does it for a living deserves their undying respect. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!
"Gen. Petraeus is a thoroughly honorable man who has dedicated his life to protecting us. I feel particularly qualified to defend him - not only because I know him, but because he and I have disagreed ferociously on many issues in the past, in print and in public. But I never doubted his integrity. This is a man of whom every American, Democrat or Republican, should be proud."
Ralph Peters thinks David Petraeus is a great guy. A man's man. A mensch. He'd give you the surge off his back. Now that that's established, let's turn to another quote..
" Far from populist, MoveOn is elitist, made up of the same sort of pseudo-intellectual activists who "knew" that Bolshevism, Maoism or fascism was what was best for the common people. And make no mistake, you are the common people these activists despise: In their lofty view, you're not qualified to choose presidents, senators or even alder-men. They mean to make your choices for you."
Now THIS quote firmly establishes as solid fact that Ralph Peters is a reprehensible douchebag of nigh-epic proportions. From these facts, logic indicates that reprehensible douchebags think David Petraeus' character is pure and unassailable. Which I think is a more damning indicator of how trustworthy Petraeus is than a hundred snarky MoveOn ads..
Peters even goes so far as to pull the "people think I'm a conservative just because I love the military and hate liberals, but I'm really a moderate independent like you" card at the end, which cements his douchebaggery in front of Mann's Chinese Theater with the footprints and signature of another total douchebag impressed into it. Never trust anyone who says they vote on issues rather than party affiliation. They're either lying to you, lying to themselves, or most likely, both.
MoveOn is a lot of things, but the one thing it is not is the fucking problem. And even if the conservatives have their way, make yet another martyr mountain out of a tiny, tiny prick, and eliminate tacky puns from political ads forevermore, we won't actually be any closer to a better society. And if Peters were the slightest bit intellectual, honest, or intellectually honest, he'd know that.